Monday, November 19, 2012

Damned if you do and damned if you don't

That sort of response has rankled Nicole Rivera, 47, who lives in a project in Arverne, where the ocean sand still swirls up the street with every passing vehicle. “It’s sad, sometimes it’s a little degrading,” she said as she stood in line in a parking lot waiting for free toiletries.

Ms. Rivera said that she was thankful for the help, but that its face — mostly white, middle- and upper-class people — made her bitter.

“The only time you recognize us is when there’s some disaster,” she said. “Since this happened, it’s: ‘Let’s help the black people. Let’s run to their rescue.’ ”

“Why wait for tragedy?” she added. “People suffer every day with this.”

A woman standing in front of her in line interjected. “To be honest, I pray to God I never see these people again,” the woman said. “The only reason these people would be out here again for us is if something like this happens again, or worse.”

What exactly is in Arverne that 'these people' would be attracted to? Ma'am, those people you revile are subsidizing your housing, food, medical care and other benefits when they aren't physically there to help you, but you want them to do more for you?

Your attitude is what's keeping you in the ghetto, not well-off white people.

52 comments:

Anonymous
said...

So, your saying or assuming that because they are black, we are subsidizing them? How do you knowwho is being subsidized and who isnt? Maybe they working poor. I wouldnt call you a racist, as I dont know you, but there are certainly alot of racial comments lately. Maybe a call to the NAACP is in order. I dont think this sort of thing should go unchallenged.

I lived in NYCHA Pomonok for 25 years and everyone I knew was paying a little thing called RENT. Crapper, you need to stop making racial comments, you look incredibly foolish and ignorant. You are making assumptions about groups of people you dont know.

And I just proved to you that they are. Oh wait, I get it. It's ok if the city calls it subsidized housing on its website. It's not ok if a white blogger who didn't mention the word "black" says it's subsidized housing.

Why is the focus on Crapper's commentary instead of on the article where low-income people have nothing but bad things to say about the white people trying to help them? I guess it's too embarrassing to admit that people would bite the hand that's taking care of them.

How do you know who is being subsidized for food and medical care? Bottom line, its low income housing and most people DO pay rent. Why is everything so racial with you?Its unfortunate that you see everything in black and white.

With what? The people complaining live in city housing that usually has heat and electricity. Why would they expect rich people from Manhattan to go there every day to give them clothes and feed them when there isn't a crisis?

How do you know who is being subsidized for food and medical care? Bottom line, its low income housing and most people DO pay rent. Why is everything so racial with you?Its unfortunate that you see everything in black and white.

Crapper didn't mention anything about black and white, you did. He addressed the comments made by the women in the article. ALL NYCHA housing is subsidized. The rents are less than market rate, the city owns the building and taxpayers maintain them. That means they are SUBSIDIZED. What is so hard for you to understand about that word?

In Far Rockaway, if you are living in the projects, it's almost a certainty that you are also receiving food stamps and Medicaid. Check the stats.

How do you know who is being subsidized for food and medical care? Bottom line, its low income housing and most people DO pay rent. Why is everything so racial with you?Its unfortunate that you see everything in black and white.-----------------------------------Where are you seeing anything racial in Crapper's comments? If you are the same commenter as Annon #1, then it seems that you are the only commenter injecting race into this. The question is, why are YOU seeing this as black and white?

"if you are living in the projects, it's almost a certainty that you are also receiving food stamps and Medicaid." Really? I live in housing for 25 years, paid my rent, worked, paid for my own insurance and never took a penny in food stamps. Lots of generalizations are made here.

Let's say for shits and giggles that the women in the article aren't receiving food stamps or Medicaid. Then really why would they need people out there helping them when there isn't a crisis? If they aren't sustained by handouts, then they must usually have plenty of food and great medical care and therefore would have no need to lament the lack of visits from white folks from the city.

Time for some to realize that racism and classism can work both ways. It is possible to hate fellow human beings simply because their lot in life is better than yours.

Give me, give me, give me thats all these people in the projects know how to say. They pay absurdly low rent and get benefit cards to pay for food and get free medical care every time they have a tummy ache. And are they grateful for it? No they want more. Unbelievable.

The middle class white person ms. Rivera and company love to hate and blame for all of their problems is the person that busts their ass going to work all day to pay taxes to maintain the projects while ms. Rivera and her neighbors stay home all day and stay up until all hours of the night drinking smoking and partying and acting like complete animals. Why are the projects a disaster? Becayse ms. Rivera and company feel the need to break everything in the building piss shit and throw garbage everywhere and then have the balls to complain its the way it is beacuse no one takes care of the poor minority people. Want to know why they have no money for basic items? Because they walk around in 200 dollar sneakers designer jeans and drive cars that the middle class white guy who is paying for them to be animals can only dream of owning.Now yes let me hear it im a heartless racist. But im in a position where i see what goes on in the projects on a daily basis. Its the inconvient reality. Dont believe me? Take a little field trip to the projects and see for yourself.

And you lived in Pomonok, not Far Rockaway. Pomonok is one of the safest projects in the city. Far Rockaway projects are the pits. At Pomonok, residents might eventually leave. In Far Rockaway, they tend to leave in body bags. Sad but true. It's amazing how someone from Pomonok can act like all NYCHA housing is the same, when it isn't. So many projects were built in the Rockaways because it was assumed the residents would not be working, and by and large, they don't. It's the epicenter of multigenerational dependency.

I have bad news for everyone. Even though we have a "black" president, by and large we live in a society that discriminates. It means less opportunities for minorities. If the shoe fits wear it. We're coming along but we ain't there yet...

And many families live in them from generation to generation.Originally projects were set up to help people for a few years until they got on their feet and then they would move into a normal productive self sufficient society.

Perhaps the bigger question is where are the people of color? We have a lot of people getting access to all kinds of things based on race, when culturally they are members of the (dominant)middle- and upper-middle class. WHERE ARE THEY?

Sometimes when people are under stress they will lash out and say things that don't make sense are or are not correct.

But every criticism has a nugget of truth somewhere.

These are the invisible people, who fight the fires, arrest the scum, turn on the boilers at 4 AM, dab the brows of the old and dying, and clean the crap from the bums of the privileged little tykes.

Instead the heroes we see celebrated in the media are the vacant, the frivolous, the rich - in short, those out of touch with the real world of Walmart Moms that have to leave their children on Thanksgiving so hipsters can buy the latest gimmick for their entitled little brats on Black Friday.

The fact of the matter is that NYC has dangerously become a stratified city.

But the pressure is slowly building for change. The public is being squeezed to death - a process that is picking up its pace.

This mess from Sandy has impacted on all of us, in ways big and small. The pols should count themselves lucky: not too long ago their ineptness would have caused calls for political change if not riots.

This mess is as much a result of nature - as the failure on our leadership who frittered away time and wasted our taxes on stupid things like worthless personal political agendas, renaming our world for their hollow heroes, and unwanted development funded by hollowing out communities for campaign donors.

The icing on the cake is the shocking abject failure to rush aid to people that are the backbone of our city.

The only satisfaction that some of us get is that sooner or later many of the hipsters that were involved in community displacement for those wonderful waterfront towers will wake out of their daze to realize they are living on a brownfield baptized by the rich holy water of the Hudson, East River, and Newtown Creek.

We should all be filled with disgust that the true extent of this is still suppressed in the media.

Instead, the movers and shakers are occupied on things like sea gates and rebranding the same crap into different names. Only grudgingly do they even acknowledge this mess they had a major hand in creating.

"No matter though, becausethis has got absolutely NOTHING to do with the topic of this post...which is anger and ingratitude!"

On the contrary, this has everything to do with it. If their own people won't come to their aid, but white people will, what is their problem? Lets face it, no one hangs out in ghettos when they don't have to.

This little exchange is part of the eternal human condition: the needy resent the fact they are needy with such passion that they turn on good people trying to help. It is the story of Cain's murderous jealously of Abel.

They were let down by the government, so they are blaming volunteers? Sorry, not buying it. And I am better off now than I was 10 years ago, its my city that's not, thanks to Bloomberg and the City Council.

I have bad news for everyone. Even though we have a "black" president, by and large we live in a society that discriminates. It means less opportunities for minorities. If the shoe fits wear it. We're coming along but we ain't there yet...---------------------------------There are oppirtunities for EVERYONE in this country, black, white and everything in between. Many GO OUT for those opportunities while others sit around and wait for them. Of those that reach out to those oportunities, many achieve SOME level of success and some fall short. That is all it is about, whether you go out and grab those opportunities. We all start at a level playing field, what you do then determines your level of success or failure. If you can't see that, then you are a fool hiding behind your racial crutch.

They were let down by the government, so they are blaming volunteers? ------------Yup. You do not see the politicians spending much time there or talking about their plight. See Chrissy Quinn out there? Sure the mayor showed up once and looked bored and Crowley WAS spotted looking at a downed tree.

A Jimmy Van Bramer spent this morning sending out emails for his next reelection campaign. There is a confident fellow that has nothing to fear.

(Naw, its sea walls and sidewalks that drain better that holds their rap attention.)

And is the news covering the plight of the storm victims? Everyone I know is telling me we are getting a whitewash.

Yup. You do not see the politicians spending much time there or talking about their plight. See Chrissy Quinn out there? Sure the mayor showed up once and looked bored and Crowley WAS spotted looking at a downed tree.

A Jimmy Van Bramer spent this morning sending out emails for his next reelection campaign. There is a confident fellow that has nothing to fear.

(Naw, its sea walls and sidewalks that drain better that holds their rap attention.)

And is the news covering the plight of the storm victims? Everyone I know is telling me we are getting a whitewash.----------------------------------Therein lies the vast difference between the black project Rockaway community and the white Belle Harbor community. Both sides are pissed at the politicians for giving nothing but lip service, and their anger is justified. But one community is doing something about their plight. The other is just hanging around bitching and moaning about how they are always dealt the short end, and waiting for someone to come help them.

The racists here are the people on line. I dont give a fck if they lost everything or never had anything. My mother taught me to be appreciative when someone helps me. Plain and simple. Call it what you want if you are so insulted about what YOU thought was an insult then YOU are the one with the issues!

The woman who made her comment is a racist piece of shit who should suffer the same consequences any "White" person would if they said the same things.

Yes America, especially New York, being a White person with a job is a crime in most of the city. Heck they are the "White Devil" or "Demonio Blanco con l'ojos azul"

I say Fuck you and get a job!

Hey POMONOK I too lived there and paid rent and worked. So did most of the people living in housing projects in the past. When was the last time you were there? Changed hasnt it? Wonder why...

Keep telling yourselves that you are oppressed and that you aren't given any opportunities. A loser thinks such things and goes nowhere. A winner makes their own opportunities. Even if a person is given a million dollars, it is still up to them to do something productive with it, or piss it away. Which one is you? Which one describes your community?

" We all start at a level playing field, what you do then determines your level of success or failure."

While I agree that there is opportunity for all, you are incorrect that we all start on a level playing field. It's a class and wealth issue, not a race issue. Someone who comes from generations of money (or even new money) has vastly different opportunities than someone who doesn't, partly based on who they know.

It's not an obligation of one person to help another, if someone does it it's probably out of the goodness of their heart and not because they feel they owe something to another. The affirmative action sentiment of allowing minorities to prevail due to the sins of prior generations of whites is overrated and its due date is near as that of the unions that cause so much harm to the economy.

The person who made the remark in the first place was black and it was a sour complaint, maybe because this person suffers from social resentment due to race and/or hard financial situation caused in the first place maybe not by the system but by his or her bad decisions. In a way, we are in great part the architects of our own destiny.

Some (not all) New York City blacks, especially some of those who live in the projects or the so called ghetto have long time bitterness against everybody; they have the tendency pass it on to their children and their children children’s.

They dislike everybody, white, Latino, Asian, other blacks from Africa and the Caribbean and they have been denominated as African-American and some dress as Africans or wear some African related attire. No wonder many businesses owned by Asians, Latinos and whites won’t hire them, and people feel the dislike of others thus becoming a like a snow ball rolling downhill.

I have met blacks from the Caribbean, Central and South America as well as from Europe and I can say most of them are hardworking, well-educated and well-mannered people.

If you happen to be in the Bronx or Harlem at a predominantly black area and you happen to enter any office or business being city or privately owned, you’ll see lots of African art, paintings, sculptures and such. But they despise African born citizens and non-citizens alike. You won’t see any Pollock paintings, Picasso, Van Gogh or any sculpture by Rodin nor a painting by Basquiat who was a black American painter.

Black people of New York City (I don’t know any other blacks from the South or any other part of the US), it’s time to get up, dust off your butt and keep walking towards an immediate future free of prejudice and longtime resentment that is starting to become genetic in the black community.

" We all start at a level playing field, what you do then determines your level of success or failure."

While I agree that there is opportunity for all, you are incorrect that we all start on a level playing field. It's a class and wealth issue, not a race issue. Someone who comes from generations of money (or even new money) has vastly different opportunities than someone who doesn't, partly based on who they know. --------------------------------Partially true. Yes, rich and influential have vastly different opportunities to reach their goals, but the poor still have those opportunities available to them through different avenues.

One of the problems is that the second and third (and fourth, etc) generations living in these poorly maintained and unsafe housing projects are often raised from birth with chips on their shoulders. They are taught that being a poor minority has to be SOMEONE's fault (i.e. "rich" middle and upper class white people). Yes, many do manage to make good and thrive because they actively look for a way out via education (one outstanding example is Chief Justice Sonia Sotomayor), but a majority continue to live as if they are sentenced to a life of oppression. This culture of poverty embodied by Ms. Rivera and the others is a culture of willful ignorance and is practically a paranoia.

We probably all know someone who has prejudices against one group (socio- economic, racial, gender, etc.) or another for whatever reason, but on the whole we are not a city of racists, bigots, and fat cats. Our city's private and public sectors have educational opportunities and yes, financial subsidies, but if you treat programs as a crutch and not a hand up, you will hobble forever. Our city wants you to succeed, Ms. Rivera, because if you thrive, we all benefit. And trust me, "those people" are no Uncle Pennybags. They are likely working-class people with large hearts.

i do not believe that Judge Sotomeyer is the "Chief" judge of S.C.O.T.U.S. his name is Roberts.

as a child/teen she went to a parochial grammar school and the exclusive Cardinal Spellman Academy in the Bronx. i am familiar with the campus. it is a tuition financed school. she was not a poverty case . her family lived in co-op city. not exactly a slum community at the time.

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